Reinvention of Lebanese equities and the coming capital market

ENAR

Metaphorically, the asset class of equities, based on trading claims of minuscule ownership slices in listed enterprises, is the ballroom dance queen and king in the palace of financial markets. Historically—the joint stock company that is the precondition for the trading of shares being as young as four centuries—this asset class is a spring chicken when compared to assets such as bonds, gold, and real estate. Equities started gradually, with the development and institutionalization of stock trading in bourses of 17th and 18th century Europe, or, in the later English term, on stock or securities exchanges. Over the past century or so, as exchanges burst to become central dance arenas of advanced economies, information and agility became mantras for investing in equities, regulation became the operating floor, and liquidity became the secret of success for the asset class. Trading in shares as a highly interactive social and economic pattern has